


Doctor-Patient Confidentiality

by tristesses



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-04
Updated: 2012-01-04
Packaged: 2017-10-28 21:27:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/312345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tristesses/pseuds/tristesses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dr. Quinzel finds a certain chemical compound in the bloodstream of an Arkham patient; what follows is a direct result of her inability to let things be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Doctor-Patient Confidentiality

**Author's Note:**

> Contains slight reference to child abuse - not enough to merit a warning, IMO, but read with caution.
> 
> Originally posted on 9/26/2008.

**I. Overmedicated**  
She is still there, trotting along after him. Her heels clack on the tile; the noise aggravates him, disrupts his cool composure, little needlemarks of sound deadened by the straw silence of the asylum at night.

“What do you want, Dr. Quinzel?”

“It’s just – Gorman in ward three can’t have the meds you prescribed.” She waves a medical chart at him. “They counteract his antipsychotics – ”

“Do you think I _care?_ ” he snaps. “Put him on the meds. _Don’t question me again._ ”  
He leaves her clutching the chart to her chest, and when he looks back again, she is gone.  


-

 **II. Detective School**  
Harleen knew he had a secret, was doing something nasty during his therapy sessions with the inmates; their gibbering and spewing was always a little…warped when Crane was through with them. She hadn’t expected _this,_ though.

(After he told her off for doing her job, she’d grown suspicious.  
Drew Gorman’s blood, ran tests. She’s not so stupid after all.  
And what kind of drugs would do that to a man?  
The home-grown kind, that’s what.)

 

She blinks back tears, shuts the door, leaves Gorman whimpering (“Scarecrow, oh fuck, Scarecrow”), signs out, as usual. But this time, she’s got a plan.  


-

  


**III. A First-Class Seduction**  
Red lips, tasting of wax and dye – her lipstick – and long fine hair. (Later he’ll have blonde strands twisted around his fingers – but he won’t be coherent enough to notice.) Her skin tastes like perfume and sweat, yielding under his teeth. Tiny moans, like the sound a rat makes when it’s skewered on a stick – is it he who’s doing that? His fingers leave bruises on her hips. It doesn’t matter.  


Those lips smile and wrap around him, ringing red on his flesh, and he’s so caught up in sensation he doesn’t notice the syringe sliding into his femoral artery.

  


-

  


**IV. Silly Mistakes**  
It’s a cleverer plan than he’d thought her capable of devising; she’s nicked the straitjacket from storage, stashed it in an abandoned cell, and hauled his drugged body there.  


“Intriguing, Harleen,” he pants, wondering exactly how much tranquilizer she gave him. “This shows more foresight than I gave you credit for.”  


“Don’t talk that shit to me!” She shakes an aerosol canister at him. “What are you using on them? Some hallucinogen?”  


“Harleen – ” he begins, but she triggers the spray anyway.  


As it fills the room and he feels himself slipping under, he rethinks his assessment of her intelligence.  


-

  


**V. Balance Beam**  
The crowd’s laughing, leering, clapping, thousands of grimy white hands (daddy’s hands) reaching, groping. Her footing falters and _wham_ she hits the ground, all air knocked out of her, the balance beam hulking overhead, creaking, drowning her in shadow, and the crowd laughs at her misfortune, crazy high-pitched squeals easily mistaken for either lust or pain. The mat beneath her bulges and rips as thousands more fists sprout from the cement, squeezing and tearing at her skin. She cries out in fear for help (no one hears – they never do).  


Harleen’s nails dig into her face. She quivers and screams.  


-

  


**VI. Aftershock**  
Her exposure to his toxin has made her fragile; he can sense the slight hysteria emanating from her pores as she converses with other doctors (voice tilting from cheer into shrillness), grips her pen (with shaking fingers), and pulls all-nighters in her office (whimpering in her sleep). It’s curious how it’s managed to drive her mad without any external stimuli, while he remains sane, even throughout all the testing of each compound. Perhaps she merely had a weaker mind, weaker will, than he.  


She giggles now, flirting with an intern, but Jonathan can’t miss that manic glint in her eye.  


-

  


**VII: Infatuation**  
He’s long, lean, and drapes himself across his prison bed like a large, pampered cat; a smirk constantly crawls across his lips, no matter what drugs they inject him with. And whenever Harleen drops by – just to see him, the madman with no name – he grins at her and wiggles his fingers in a salute.  


She begs Crane for the case. (He eventually allows it.)  


On the day of their first therapy session, she stands just inside the door, clutching his case file to her chest.  


“Hello, Joker,” she says timidly.  


A low chuckle, skin-crawlingly sensual, and he says, “Hey, Doc.”


End file.
